I hope it's as close as they've come yet..

I actually agree to a certain extent with you Ronsauce. I agree that freedom is very over rated in games and I agree that GTA sort of introduced the notion that freedom = better.

I also agree that GTA is a terrible game if you divide it into little segments. The controls are bad, the visuals (though at GTA3 very pretty) aged super fast with San Andreas looking considerably worse in a lot of ways than Vice City did.

But the thing is, it's also a game that is much more impressive overall than if you look at the different aspects of it. It has a difficult-to-top class about it, with a tongue in cheek approach to everything. A clever sense of self irony, often making fun of itself but not in an annoying way. It's also easy to be fed up with the whole "gangstah" thing that EA went for 100%, but upon closer inspection NONE of the GTAs fall victim to blatant exploitation of the "gangstah" culture, not even San Andreas.

I think if there's a problem with GTA3 then it's that it has very little in the way of emotional investment in your character. He's a total mute and has no sense of direction whatsoever, and while some people are into the whole "giving him personality with your imagination" thing, that always sounded a bit like a bad excuse to me. This was totally adressed in Vice City though, with a proper main character with proper balls. In San Andreas they took the motivation bit even further, and unlike GTA3 there was a much more tangible sense of actually going somewhere whenever you felt that you wanted to be a part of the main plot.

The fact that the controls never once improved over the course of the GTA3 trilogy is something I'll readily agree is pretty scandalous, but at the same time there is something admirable about having a solid foundation and changing the content in such significant ways. Quick cash-in tactics some would suggest, but I personally think it's a much more reasonable way than updating the engine over the course of 2 years and then releasing something virtually identical anyway - without the increase and/or significant change in content. That the controls of GTA3 largely sucked ultimately made for an annoying side-effect, but I think the trade off was worth it.

So.. what exactly is wrong with that anyway? GTA prides itself on satire, and handles these issues rather tastefully compared to something like Saints Row.. which just blurts out racist catch phrases around every corner to be edgy. I don't see what's wrong about focusing on a GANG CULTURE, regardless of where it comes from.

Is it somehow better to play some Italian mobster? A Miami drug lord? All of the GTA games play off of a pretty obvious movie driven theme (up until now).. SA is no exception.

People sure do love to hate themselves some GTA. It's a wonder this franchise is as popular as it is.